1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to grid computing and more particularly relates to autonomic control of performance resources in a grid computing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Grid computing is a relatively new technology in the computing industry. Many current grid computing systems are designed to allow multiple interconnected computers, or nodes, to work together on large grid applications, such as computational problems, that would be impossible to do on a single machine. In order to feasibly manage such overwhelming amounts of computational processing, the computational problem may be divided into several smaller, more manageable jobs. This type of shared processing of grid applications is possible in part because of the enforced or incidental idle processor time of many personal and business computers.
Additionally, grid computing systems may allow for shared storage across a plurality of nodes within the system. In this way, data may be stored remotely on the system, in the form of a backup, for example, and allow large amounts of data to be virtually stored by a single node.
One of the major issues in designing and implementing grid computing systems is resource management. Managing the performance resources available to the grid computing system is fundamental to the efficacy of the system. For example, with various disparate storage, memory, and processing resources available from the many nodes in a grid computing system, somehow these performance resources must be utilized within the grid system in an organized and productive manner.
Conventional grid systems typically implement a stimulus-response environment in which operations and commands are executed simply in response to a given stimulus. For example, if a grid application requires certain processor capacities or a particular amount of storage space, then that amount of processor capacity or storage space may simply be assigned for execution of the grid application. This type of stimulus-response environment does not account for the dynamic nature of distributed computing, in which many performance resources may be dynamically allocated, reclaimed, reserved, and so forth. Due to an inability to regulate grid application operations within such a dynamic environment, grid computing operations must be kept relatively simple to conform to a simple stimulus-response environment.
Consequently, a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method that facilitate favorable autonomic control of performance resources on a grid computing system. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would overcome the current limitations on grid applications and grid computing systems.